Formerly Adios World of Warcraft, Hello Gym Membership!

Yep. I’m losing it in the head. Went on vacation to DC TWO WEEKS ago and I’m still acting like I’m on vacation. I’ve been better at keeping my portions and snacking down this week but I’m still eating shit food. And I don’t like how my body feels. It feels like an engine that needs an oil change. Running but is sluggish and sounds kinda funny. I ate McDonald’s for lunch before my run on Wednesday and boy could I tell a difference in how I felt while running. I felt gross.

I am proud of myself, however. I was going to “restart” on Sunday and cram as much crap into my pie hole as I could until then but I stopped myself. Gunna change up the diet for a few weeks. Take away the cheat days and calorie count. Starting today. Already started putting my calories in My Fitness Pal.

I’ve slowly been coming to the realization that cheat day is not good for me mentally. It’s usually great for my willpower during the week but on the actual cheat day I don’t want to do anything but eat the foods I dreamed of all week. I binge. I’ve come a long way in these last 4 years of trying to get healthier. I haven’t lost much weight but I’ve been changing my perception.

I don’t just want to lose the weight anymore. I want to be healthy. I want to be fit. I want to be at peace with food. I can’t be at peace if I’m constantly dreaming of cheat day. My friend has been having the same battle even though she’s much smaller than me. I see her overcoming her obstacles and I’m so proud. And she looks amazing! The most recent thing she’s been trying to beat is her relationship with the scale. We run three days a week and lift heavy weights two days a week. She’s small so the scale is going bonkers because of the weight lifting. She was afraid to do her quarterly measurments because she was afraid that since the scale hadn’t changed that her body hadn’t changed. I measured her, she lost a whole slew of inches.

Since then she’s been trying to disconnect her weight from her progress. I think she might finally be there. She posted a picture on Twitter this morning and she looks SO good. Like I said, I’m proud of her. This morning I was pouring over her fitness/food Tumblr and looking at her meals. I decided that I’m going to do what she does. She can order stuff that might be higher in calories for dinner because she almost never finishes it all. Which is probably due to the fact that she eats four “meals” at work. Which is the same thing my very petite, very thin coworker does.

I know everything works for everyone but I am going to give this another shot. The last time I tried this was 3 years ago and I did not know as much about eating well as I do now. I thought I did, but I didn’t. I will continue to weigh myself daily but that’s because I tend to say “Eff it!” and eating something I shouldn’t if I don’t know my weight that day. I do think I was successful in not really putting too much weight (Heh) on my weight. I see the number, make a note of it and go about my day. I’m pretty happy about that. I think it was because of my wedding dress. I don’t know what weight I need to be but I know what my measurements need to be.

Okay. Getting my head back into it. I have some wiggle room in my time frame for fitting into my dress but I’d rather not waste it. I’m pretty pumped right now.

194.8 today and I’m expecting it to be about 192 by Saturday morning. Most likely retaining some water from the buffet we went to for our friend’s birthday last night. I was very proud of myself, I only had a small bit of french fries (okay, okay with cheese sauce) and a little bit of chocolate eclair dessert. Other than that I stuck to meats. Instead of gorging myself beyond belief like I normally would have. I even lost weight between yesterday and today. You never lose weight after going to Shady Maple! So I’m pretty excited about that.

I’ve been pretty sick with bronchitis but I’m feeling a bit better so I’m going to lift tonight with my girls. It’s LEG DAY! The best of all the days.

Okay. I’ve been super stressed out and I need a place to just write out my thoughts. I feel disjointed and lost. I encouraged my fiance to start his own online business. Which he did. The game plan was that he does that and works for awhile until we see what kind of money it’s bringing in. Well, that didn’t happen and he got pushed out of his stable job working as an accountant at a bank. So that was stressful enough. But then there were issues with getting the website set up and the main thing that’s going to bring in the most money isn’t set up yet. And he’s home all day and I never see him working so that stresses me out even though I know he’s working. We’re still paying our bills so we’re not hurting yet but I’m very scared. And I feel like I can’t bring this up to him (Even though I do sometimes) because I encouraged him to start this. I didn’t encourage him to tell his job about his business (That’s why they asked him to leave). Sigh.

So there’s all that. And I’m trying to plan a nice wedding. Not like a $10,000 wedding or anything but something nice. When we booked stuff he still had his job. So now we’re locked into a venue, photographer, DJ and caterer and he doesn’t have a real job. I know, I know.. he’s working and making money but it’s not the same. So I’m stressing how we’re going to pay for all of this. Well, the venue is already paid and we put some money toward the DJ and photographer. But we still have like $1000 left to pay for that. And the catering is where I’m super stressing. It’s gunna be at least $2000. Ugh. Dunno where we’re going to get the money for all of this.

And I especially don’t know where the money is coming from because I found out two days ago that my office is getting outsourced. We’re all losing our jobs in a few months. I’ve been trying to find a new job for 2 years so I’m really, really not hopeful about how this will turn out for me. I’ve sent out SO many resumes and in 2 years only got one interview. I’m trying to remain positive but it’s really hard. I just feel so defeated right now. Things seem to be coming at us from all directions. The same day I found out about my job my fiance blew a tire. I need to get my car inspected on Monday but I know for a fact I need 4 new tires, a new battery and prooobably brakes AND rotors.

I know we’ll come out of this stronger and I’m trying to hold on to that. This is the stuff in life that makes you who you are. I’m just feeling a little sorry for myself. It felt like we were finally making a nice dent in our debt. It looked like we were going to be able to pay for a wedding and still have a down payment for a house by next summer. Now I don’t know. I don’t know any of it. Oh, and we were finally in a place where we could afford for me to get my $200 a month inhaler that I need. That’s not gunna happen anymore.

If it weren’t for Zoloft I don’t think I could get out of bed. It’s probably the only reason I’m not crying constantly and vomiting from stress. It’s also probably the reason I’m not eating everything in sight. My emotional reaction to things (Mostly bad but also for good things) is to eat. It makes me feel good, it’s like a little get away. I have noticed a substantial drop off in binges and emotional eating in general since starting the Zoloft. I’m not sure why that is. It really messed with my appetite at first so I’m not sure if it’s still messing with it or it just put my head in a place where I don’t really think about it. I have been much less focused on food and weight, the focus is on how my clothes fit and seeing progress in my heavy lifting.

So yeah. There’s my pity party. Oh wait, no, sorry. I’m not done yet. When they told us about our jobs on Wednesday they promised us all sorts of things. They were going to hire a headhunter to find us new jobs, they were going to bring in a professional to help us with our resumes, they were going to cover our health benefits until the end of the year (Transition starts in September). We’ve found out that the headhunter and resume help are lies. Okay, that’s not fair. They INTENDED to but the people at the tip top of the company said no. I’m guessing that the health benefit promise was also a lie. The office manager is trying to tell us that this might not even happen but I don’t believe her for a minute. I think she’s just trying to keep us from jumping ship until September. She even contradicted herself saying that there’s a change it won’t happen and in the next breath said “when this happens”. Plus, as far as I know it’s really the business administrator who is dealing with this and knows 100% what’s going on and she said that she can’t say 100% it’s going to happen because they don’t have the contract yet but to brace ourselves because it’s pretty much happening.

I understand why they lied to us but it’s still really disrespectful. Don’t promise things you don’t know that you fulfill. Everyone is really hurt, this office is one of those offices where everyone is “family” so the women who have been here for 10-35 years feel very betrayed. I’ve only been here 5 years. I mean, I didn’t like this job anyway and it’s too far of a drive but I’m still upset.

Okay. Now I’m done. I’m stressing myself out more by writing it out. Ugh. It’ll be okay. It could be worse. We don’t have a mortgage. We pay rent but it’s to his parents. We don’t have children. We’ll be okay. I just have to keep saying that.

So since my last post I COMPLETELY fell off again. Went up to a new high of 215.1lbs. I’m 203.2 this morning but I’m expecting it to drop several pounds in a few days due to various reasons. Anyway. I suspect that the reason I fell off plan was because I became depressed. I eventually got help and am now on an antidepressant. It’s been a lot easier to stay on plan since being put on medicine.

I have ZERO choice about staying on plan, though. You see, in early February my mother bought me an entirely too expensive wedding dress. Oh right, I hadn’t gotten to what else has happened in my life yet. I’m engaged! And it did indeed happen on our anniversary trip to Maine in August. It was a phenominal trip and I just fell in love with Maine. So yeah. My mom bought me a wedding dress. I was planning on outsourcing my dress to an overseas dressmaking company that I’ve read great things about. So I was only expecting to pay about $500 for my dress. My mother decided that made her too uncomfortable and bought my dress. Except I was at my highest weight EVER and buying a dress that fit me at that weight was just simply unacceptable to me. So I signed my life away as I ordered a size 16 Demetrios wedding dress. I chose 16 because I knew it was a completely reasonable size for me to get to and because that was the biggest I could order and not be slapped in the face with a $200 “you’re fat” fee. According to previous calculation, I need to be around 180 to fit into my dress. Totally do-able.

Let’s see what else? My fiance quit is job at the bank and started his own business selling Magic: the Gathering cards online. I’m nervous as hell but it’s been a month and we’re still able to pay our bills so I guess it’s working out. He also dyed his hair blue, I love it. I got my inner forearm tattooed with something I’ve been wanting for years. Our wedding is basically all booked. We just need to pick a menu and we’re done with all of that. Still have save the dates, invites, favors, center pieces, all that stuff to do but our officiant’s (my BFF) wedding gift to us is to basically be our DYI slave. Which is awesome. I’ve been gathering brooches for a brooch bouquet for months, I don’t need that many more.

I’m trying to take a different mental approach to this session of weight loss. Last time it was consuming and the amount of time I spent planning and thinking and craving was exhausting. I’m trying to take a more “thin person” attitude about food. I’m on the same diet (I only eat meat and veggies during the week and once a week I have a cheat day) from before so that hasn’t changed but what I am doing is only eating when I’m hungry. Turns out, my body does not require or even really want lunch. I eat three eggs for breakfast and my stomach doesn’t rumble until 4PM. I still bring a lunch with me most day in case I do get hungry but I almost never eat it. I was eating lunch before because I felt like I had to. Granted, I think my Zoloft is helping me in this department. Anorexia is a side effect, I lost almost all interest in food the first month or so. I would get 3 bites into my food and be completely disinterested and full. That really helped my transition to only eating when I’m hungry.

I’m still only drinking water and plain black hot tea for fluids. Even on my cheat day I’ve decided to stop drinking calories. I wait 30 minutes after I’m done eating dinner to see if I’m still hungry for a snack/seconds. I almost never am, I find something to do while I’m waiting for time to pass and I completely forget I wanted to pick at some food. Which means I have completely stopped snacking when it isn’t cheat day. I’m perfectly content with breakfast and dinner. As I mentioned I get hungry around 4, but I leave work at 4:15-4:30 and I have an hour drive home. 3 days a week I go directly to the gym after work. By the time I get home and make dinner, we’re eating around 7 and I’m no hungrier than I was at 4. It really weirds me out if I think about it too much. I use to be obsessed with when I was going to eat, what I was going to eat, how much of it I was going to eat. Now, not so much.

I’ve made a very hard effort to not be so attached to food and it seems to be working. I’m so happy for that. My entire life, I feel, has revolved around when I was going to eat and if I was going to get a snack.

I’ve also started weight lifting again. Heavy. I thought I was lifting heavy before but turns out I didn’t know jack lol. My two friends and I have been working out in a basement twice a week while her husband trains us. It’s been really, really great to have all of that support. Plus we get to do it in a place where we don’t feel self conscious. We call it Catacomb Gym and the motto is “Add More Weight.”

I may or may not be around my blog. Writing in it seems counterproductive to my “trying not to think about it” approach. I’ll certainly do SOME update but it might not be a lot. Wish me luck!

Well, I totally forgot about this blog for awhile. I’m SO mad at myself. I was doing SO well. I even saw 169.5 on the scale, apparently. I don’t know how but I completely forgot about that moment. How is that possible?

Unfortunately I’m here to report that I’m 185.3 today. I spazzed and didn’t watch my eating for 2 months. Well. It wasn’t that I just didn’t watch my eating. I was binging. For two months. I DON’T KNOW WHY. I got so frustrated out of no where and so angry that I couldn’t eat what I wanted when I wanted to. My mind kind of snapped.

I recommitted almost a month ago. I tried for 3 weeks to recommit before it finally stuck but now that I’m here, I feel pretty good. Content. Satisfied. Wondering why I ever left. Very angry at myself for letting go of it.

I’m back, I can’t keep kicking myself for what I did. It’s done, move on. And move on I shall.

I have barely lost any weight in the month I’ve returned. I think it’s due to a few things. I started taking my running more seriously and have been increasing my mileage by 10% a week for a couple weeks. I’m still not even at 10 miles a week, but I will be there soon. Maybe this week. My goal is 30 miles a week.

And I started lifting weights. This is my fifth week. I had been telling myself I know I should do it, I just don’t wanna. I don’t even remember what made me bite the bullet but I did. I feel pretty great about it, even if I don’t always look forward to it like I do with running. But it’s fine/kinda fun when I’m in the middle of it. I feel like a badass, so that’s nice. I aim to lift heavy. I’ve always been pretty strong so I’m interested to see how strong I can get. This week I made the transition from the dumbbells at home that I have already outgrown (Thank goodness we already had them and I didn’t just buy them!) to doing it in the gym.

I know free weights are the way to go, but that section still intimidates me. I did manage to do my dumbbell squats over there. The rest were on machines. Which I don’t like. I think I need to work my way up to an entirely free weight routine, though. Very self conscious and intimidated. But I’m doing this in the gym in the morning before work, so there was NO ONE by the free weights. So that helped.

As far as life, everything is going pretty well. Last I left off with my boyfriend and I had just moved from the house we were renting into the basement of his parents’ house. Again, it’s more of a “basement” than an honest to god basement with one room and cement floors and maybe a window. The cats LOVE the giant windows in the front of the basement. Enormous doors that look out across a yard that usually has some birds in it, I saw wild turkeys the other day, frogs, toads, who knows what else is out there for them to stare at all day. Their fighting is down to a minimum, which is nice. I think it has to do with the layout and windows. The bedroom is the only room that has one tiny window because the bedroom is the most underground part of the walk out basement. It’s nice, though. The temperature stays pleasant in the heat we’ve had so far. I barely see his parents so it’s nice for privacy. I do know it’s never truly private because maybe someone’s out in the yard or downstairs doing laundry or whatever. But the privacy level is basically everything I could have hoped for from this situation.

I still think that we may be getting engaged on our trip to Maine in August. We were on vacation with our friends in Baltimore and all of the guys left the table to go have a smoke, including the nonsmokers, which left my boyfriend’s best friend, another friend, and me. For some reason Bonnie brought up if I thought we’d be getting engaged soon. I said I wasn’t positive but I thought that maybe it would happen in Maine. Bonnie said “I bet Kera knows!” and we both looked at Kera. Her eyes got wide and she clasped her hands over her mouth, then she said “I’ll never tell!” When she was starting to say she’d never tell, I was already in the middle of throwing my hands over my ears and yelling “I DON’T WANT TO KNOW.” But I saw her face. She knows something it up. Whether it’s in Maine or not, I don’t know. But something is up. Bonnie pulled the same thing with one of my best friends and my best friend looked like a deer in headlights and said she didn’t know anything. Though, to be fair, she often looks like a deer in heads lights if she’s confused about what you’ve said or why you’ve said it. So she might honestly not know anything. I haven’t asked. Because I don’t want to know.

I am still here. Still losing weight. More slowly that previously, but still losing. I am 174.5 today, most of which is water weight from my cheat day on Saturday. Saturday morning I was 169.5. I am buckling back down with exercise, due to the wedding and moving I slacked off because I had other things to do. I started Jillian Michael’s 30 Day Shred last night with 2lb hand weights. I’m kicking my ass into Couch 2 5K week 4 today.

I’m nervous about C25K. I’ve been on week 3 since NOVEMBER. In that time I’ve gotten bronchitis 3 times and a few other colds. All of which severely impact my progress. Not to mention I seem to have already convinced myself I can’t do week 4 without ever having attempted it. It’s been getting nicer and nicer outside. Last August when my friend and I decided to become runners, we said “come spring we can run outside on the trails!” Well. Neither one of us are ready for that yet. I really wanted to be running-outside-ready by this time and I’m not. I decided that I am trying week 4 today. Despite having been off from the gym for like 3 weeks. I’ll consider it a success if I can get through the first 5 minute jog and be completely proud of myself if I make an attempt at the second 3 minute jog. I don’t expect to finish. But I expect to try.

On top of trying out week 4, I’m also going to do the 30 Day Shred again today. I’m still SO sore from last night but oh well. I really wanna kick my ass back into this exercising thing and I’ve been wanting to combine running and the 30DS so I might as well just go for it.

My boyfriend and I moved the weekend before last. We now live with his parents. When I say with, I really mean underneath. We’ve got the basement mostly to ourselves. They have to come down for laundry and the keg is down there too. But we’ve got our own kitchen, our own bedroom, mostly our own bathroom (The only shower in the house is down there, but his parents usually take baths), our own living room, and our own entrance. Except his parents enter through the garage which means they have to go through our “apartment” to get upstairs to the rest of the house. All in all, not too shabby. We’re doing this to get both of us out of credit card debt, save for a down payment for a house, and save money to buy fancy appliances. I can only assume we’ll at least be engaged or maybe even married by the time house buying rolls around. He recently asked me my ring size and we’re going to Maine for almost a week in August for our anniversary. Sooooo, I think we’ll be engaged in under 6 months. I think he thinks that I was too drunk to remember he asked me my ring size. Nope. That is a thing that burned into my drunk ass memory. One of my BFFs also heard him ask, we shared an eye contact squeal. So excited.

So yeah. Changes. I’m hoping this jump back into exercise will also jump start my weight loss. I originally wanted to be 163.5 by the end of the month but that’s not happening. So I’m hoping for 165.something. 163.5 marks half way to 120. I still feel like a fat ass, even though I’ve lost 37lbs so far. “Sure I’ve lost 37lbs but I still look terrible” is basically what I’m living with right now. I’m hoping something in my brain will switch when I get to low 160s/get into the 150s. But then again, I was hoping my brain would switch out of that when I got to the 170s, so I dunno. Ugh. I want to celebrate my weight loss but instead I’m frustrated and feel like I haven’t accomplished anything. Even though I know 37lbs IS an accomplishment.

I’ve been thinking a lot about my mini goals and my goal weight and reading old posts. When I get down to 170 I’ll have kicked every other diet attempt in the face. Not only will I have lost more than twice the weight than any other attempt (At 170 I’ll have lost 37lbs) but it will be my lowest weight in AT LEAST 3 years. That will be quite a feat. I still can’t believe I managed to get up to 207. Absolutely unbelievable to me. But it happened. And not only did I barely notice I put on so much weight, I didn’t even care. Well, I cared. But I didn’t CARE. I was angry that I was eating “normally” and still gaining weight. Meanwhile I didn’t notice that my portions had gotten out of control and it wasn’t normal eating at all.

Then one day it hit me that I was over 25 and it was very possible my metabolism was getting worse and that’s what my problem was. I never ate well but was able to maintain a high end of normal BMI all through high school. Now it was obvious that I couldn’t do that anymore. And I was bitter about it.. for a long time. This anger and bitterness at my body, my metabolism, and myself held me back for a long time. I think these were the problem for all of my other weight loss efforts. I knew I was angry about needing to diet. I KNOW I get spiteful about NEEDING to diet or go to the gym and will stop doing those things once I’m angry enough about it. I knew these things and I let them stop me from completing my weight loss efforts.

I’ve grown and matured since I started this blog. I’ve learned not to cling to the ideas of things. Like the idea that my emotionally abusive ex was The One. Which kept me in an unhealthy relationship for a long time. I made excuses for his behavior and mine. “it’s okay, he’s the one. I know it.” Just because you think something doesn’t mean it’s true. In my case, I had never experienced being treated right in a relationship. Turns out having ACTUALLY someone be The One for you makes you feel rather silly for thinking anyone before that person was right for you. It clicks in a way you never understood but when it finally happens you realize how in the dark you were.

And that 100% carries over to getting healthy. I thought I understood dieting. I thought I understood exercise. I didn’t gain any mystical knowledge regarding these things, I have the same knowledge I’ve always had. Yet for someone I feel like I get it now. I knew weight loss doesn’t occur overnight but I’d get upset when I only lost 10lbs in 2 months. I thought I knew how to eat healthy but I wasn’t really even eating veggies! I felt like I shouldn’t “have to” eat anything like that in order to weigh less.

This is how I know I’ve matured and my situation in life has changed. I’m not angry about dieting. I’m not bitter. I have to do it but I also WANT to do it and I’m happy to do it. I feel like I got it this time.

Now, having said that. I’m pretty frustrated at the moment. I need to stall my weight loss so my bridesmaid dress fits next Saturday. I’m already 3-5lbs lower than I was the last time I tried the dress on. But apparently I only know how to lose or gain because I’m gaining. Not a lot. But I am up 3lbs from my lowest weight so far (Which was 177.7). This morning’s gain was heartbreaking and I’m really hoping it was a combination of sodium and it being my first time back to the gym in 6 days. So hopefully my muscles were retaining water. Ugh.

Last Thursday was awful. I pushed myself too hard at the gym (3 miles on the elliptical in 30 minutes). I made myself terribly sick and I felt off for like 2 days. All of my gym rat friends said I drink too much water. I still don’t believe that. I drink 80-100oz a day with 30 minutes of cardio. But either way, I took their advice and laid off the exercise for a bit. I wasn’t going to go on Monday, but I couldn’t anyway. I wanted to go on Tuesday but I realized I needed to get my hair cut for the wedding so I could dye it. So I got it cut and dyed it instead of going to the gym. So I went back yesterday and I’ll go tonight and tomorrow. Hoping I can get back to 178 by Saturday. Was hoping to be 176 by Saturday but that won’t happen. Even though I’m stalling my weight loss I still wanna be 175 for the wedding. Which is 5lbs away from where I wanted to be, so I’d say that’s pretty good.

Off topic but I hate my hair color. It was supposed to be red-red. Not a natural orangey-red. The roots are a carrot orange in bright lights and the rest of my hair is like a cherry. WHY ARE MY ROOTS ORANGE? That was not one of the options on the side of the box! It ranged from red to a black cherry depending on your original color. UGH. So I’m gunna dye my hair again. I really hate having to dye it again, it’ll be hard on my hair, but I’m not having my hair look like this for someone’s wedding photos.

One of these days I want to do a picture food diary for a whole week and post it here. But for now, this is for theskinnyonenowfat who asked me what I eat!

Breakfast is ALWAYS two eggs over easy and about 20oz of water (I’ve also started taking a women’s one a day vitamin, a b-complex vitamin, and a probiotic because low carb will mess up your ability to poooo). When I first started this was not enough food for me and I’d cook up a little bit of carton egg whites to go with it/use it instead of toast to pick up the yoke. But now two eggs does me just fine until about 12:45PM. I get a twinge of hunger at 11 but I’m usually busy with work and it subsides with drinking water.

As soon as I get to work I get myself a cup of water (About 32 ounces, this is a BIG cup) and a mug of hot tea. I take my tea plain. I drink the tea while it’s still hot and I finish my water between 8 and 10 or 11. When it’s finished I get more. I try to drink 3 of them while I’m at work. I worked my way up to that though, I started out with one of the giant cups of water a day, then two, now threee. I feel like the 3rd glass really helps keep me hydrated during my workout.

At 12:45PM I eat a bowl of chili. This is where the recipe originated from: The Healthy Monk’s Slow Carb Chili. I have since deviated from it. I use almost 2lbs of meat (Usually just beef but sometimes I use half turkey). I use a big can of kidney beans and a big can of black beans. I puree 2 green peppers and one onion because I do no like the texture of them. I buy pureed tomatoes instead of diced. Hint: Shopping in the ethic aisle makes things cheaper. So I cook up the meat as if I’m making tacos and then throw everything in the crock pot. I use A LOT of spices. A lot of taco seasoning. Salt. Hot chili pepper powder. Some cumin, not a lot. And taste, taste, taste until it feels about right. Leave it in the crock pot over night or for like 6 hours on low. Voila, lunch for a week and a half or two. I bring a giant Tupperware container full to work and eat it until it’s gone. I eat until I’m full, no measuring. It’s usually less than I think it’s going to take. This is my favorite lunch because it’s satisfying (And I’m a girl who HATES chili), it tastes good, and it keeps me not hungry for hours.

Dinner is a different story. I do a lot of different things for dinner.

One of my favorites is a beef and broccoli stir fry. I’ll either buy minute steak or flank steak and chop ‘em up into inch pieces. I marinate them for a little bit in red cooking wine, sesame oil, and minced garlic. Sometimes I throw onion powder in there as well. Sometimes I only marinate for like 10 minutes but it really make a difference. While it’s doing that, I’m chopping up broccoli. My boyfriend likes the florets and I prefer the stalks (Yeah, I’m a weirdo), it’s one of the many reason we’re awesome. When that’s all set and steaming, I cook the beef. I put a little sesame oil in the wok and some sauce that is called Thai Sweet Chili Pepper sauce. It’s got sugar in it but considerably less than other sweet chili pepper sauces. I’m not supposed to have sugar on my diet but I don’t care because the stir fry is very blah without it. It doesn’t seem to hurt anything. By the time the meat is done, the broccoli is done and I toss it all in the wok and give it a good stir. Now, I can’t eat rice or anything. So what I have been doing is buying bean thread noodles, in the Asian section of the grocery store. They are made out of mung beans and water and DAMN are they tasty. So I’ll have a small bunch of those noodles (The bag I buy has 3 hunks of dried noodles that are a great serving size for me) and put the beef and broccoli on top.

I will make a pound of chicken marinated in some sort of salad dressing (usually Italian). I will make spaghetti squash and meatballs. Difference here is I also saute the spaghetti squash in a frying pan after it’s cooked with some butter and garlic (Yep, I eat butter too). The meatballs use pureed white kidney beans (AKA cannellini beans) as a filler instead of bread. The meatballs are also half sausage half ground beef.

Mashed cauliflower is AMAZING. I love it. I really, really do. I tried to do cauliflower rice once but that was too much for me, so I stick with the mashed now even though that’s a bit of a pain in the ass too.

Basically my dinner always consists of a meat and a veggie. As much of both as I want. Certain recipes will mean I won’t lose AS MUCH the next day, but I still lose.

Okay, so I admit I’ve been slacking hardcore on my push ups.. but I injured my foot running and while I can still exercise on it, it’s uncomfortable to do push ups. But this was my progress (And my Misha) when I was still making it!

Okay everyone.. feel free to smack me. The weight has started MELTING off of me. Usually what happens is I gain 5lbs on cheat day and then the next cheat day I’m two pounds below where I was the week before. Not this time. Last cheat day I gained 1.6lbs. ONE POINT SIX. And I think it is due to stuffing my face the second I got up so while I ate the whole rest of the day it was not nearly as bad as in previous weeks where I spread out my gorging. I don’t think I ate any less than previous weeks I think having almost all of my calories in the morning really helped. So I tried it again this week. We’ll see how it works out.

Cheat days are actually a bit appalling. On this diet you are SUPPOSE to eat the most disgustingly off plan stuff and as much of it as you can. But it helps SO much. No need to snack during the week because “I can just have it on Saturday.” As of 1PM on this cheat day I’ve had 3 small slices of pizza (I like to order a $5 small pizza from Domino’s every other week and eat half a week), an Entennman’s ultimate cinnamon roll, a small bowl of cereal, a few spicy sweet Doritos, and a cup of pumpkin spice coffee with cinnamon roll creamer. Oh, and a few bites of the pumpkin pie/cake hybrid I made last week. I have a pack of Reese’s, Peeps, and fudge my friend made for Christmas waiting for me later. Who knows when that will be because I want to explode. It should almost be illegal to have lost this much weight while eating like that once a week.

Honestly I feel bad for some of the girls on the forums. They spend weeks and weeks following their plan to a T and get upset if they eat 3 cookies one day. To not have to worry about that is AMAZING. I feel guilty about it, like I’m bragging. But really, I simply found a thing that works for me. And I understand that low carb isn’t for everyone even though I swore up and down for A DECADE that I would never touch one.

Last Saturday I weighed in at 187.8. This Saturday I weighed in at 181.6. That is criminal weight loss for someone who didn’t change her diet!